by Dan Davis
“What is it?” Onca said.
“A very special assignment. You would join the military again, and simply sign a few watertight legal agreements. You would be representing your country. You see, the United Nations is putting together a special task force. Each nation on Earth gets to send someone to represent their country. Well, most of the significant nations, at least. We have to send the very best soldier or fighter that we have in the entire country. The best man we have, officer, NCO or enlisted.”
“How do you define the best soldier?” Onca asked, amused.
“In this case, we need a man who is good on his feet, fighting alone. Hand to hand, close quarters, firearms. An old-fashioned soldier, in many ways but he has to be smart, creative and driven. Committed. And he has to be physically elite, in terms of strength, stamina and agility. A world class specimen.”
Onca stared at the man. “And you want me to represent Brazil? I am honored you chose me but I am hospitalized, General. Look at me. I cannot fight.”
“You will make a full recovery in time to join the project. Listen, if you choose to accept, we will do more than ensure your recovery. If you accept, then Brazil will divert enormous financial resources into making you into even more than you were.”
“Sorry, General. I won’t have any of that augmented shit in me. Never.”
“I understand, I feel exactly the same way myself. No, this is just biological enhancements. Extra strength in your bones, stronger muscles that are more efficient, that kind of thing. You would have faster reaction times, be able to carry more and run for longer. A dream come true for any right-thinking man. I know that my old body would welcome feeling young again. And there’s no risk, none at all, we will have the best surgeons in Brazil working on you.”
“Only if I agree,” Onca said. “What is the mission?”
“We can’t tell you that,” Branca said, as if he’d been just waiting for a chance to say it. “Until you sign up.”
Alvarez chuckled. “I’m afraid it’s true.”
“Can you tell me where I would be going, at least?”
“No,” Branca said.
“The United States,” General Alvarez said. “At least initially. After that, well. I will tell you after you sign.”
“I can’t be the first person you came to with this?” Onca said, feeling wary. “I’m the best soldier in Brazil? I’m too old. I’m already slower than I was.”
“You’re, what, thirty-two? Hardly time yet to hang up your boots. You’ll be better than ever, far better. Here, read this agreement then sign at the bottom. Then I can tell you.”
He unfolded a screen and handed it over. Onca scrolled through dire warnings, page after page of threats. It said nothing other than his freedom and even his life would be outside of his own hands after he signed.
“How is this any different to the military?” he asked them.
“Exactly,” General Alvarez said. “You’ve done this before. Simply do so once more.”
Onca took a deep breath, felt his head spinning. He had no one. All his friends had been in Sabre Rubro. There was never any family to miss. No woman who would miss anything of him except his wallet.
There was Lena, of course. And he would have to organize things with Camilla, now that Matos was gone. Camilla would get Matos’ life insurance payments and Onca would continue to provide for the girl. All he needed to do was set the finances up in a such a way that they would never need fear being poor.
“You would have to pay me well,” Onca said.
General Branca frowned but Alvarez grinned. “We would, far in excess of a Major’s salary. The project is swimming with funding, isn’t it, Branca.”
“It would be something that we could negotiate,” General Branca said.
Alvarez’s face clouded with contempt. “You speak as if it is your money, you damned tight ass. Major, we would pay you more than a General earns.”
Branca muttered something under his breath.
“I appreciate the offer but it is hard to agree to something without knowing what it will mean.”
“I’ll tell you this,” Alvarez said. “You’ll be going into a selection process. An international team will be selected to go away for a long time. You’ll be giving up the rest of your life, probably, to this mission. But only if you are selected. If you’re the best in the world, you’ll do some of the most amazing things any man has ever done.”
“You should go to see Enzo Martins,” Onca said. “He’s still in the service.”
Alvarez nodded. “He’s good. He’s good. A good man, good blood. Truth is, Onca, we did go to him. First of all, we found this young guy called Henry Sousa, doubt you know him. He came up real fast soon after you left and his scores were through the roof. Physically, he could have been breaking world records in the decathlon or almost any sport he wanted. Smart kid, too.”
“Too smart to say yes?” Onca said.
“He agreed before I could finish speaking and I told him less than I’ve told you. Poor kid. Died in his second week up in the USA. Training accident. Got himself diced to pieces. We begged for a second shot so we went to see Captain Sousa. They loved him up there. You know what he’s like, consummate professional, fun to be around. He just wasn’t up to the required physical standard.”
“Henry wasn’t up to the standard?” Onca said. “Bullshit.”
“You have to understand what we’re talking about. What we’re offering here. This UN project is looking for the best men in the world. In the whole world, Onca. Now, Brazil is not going to have a dog in this fight, not anymore.” Alvarez leaned in. “Unless we send you.”
“Me?” Onca said. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Look, you’re famous. You were famous before the live stream of your dawn raid on Abora Biopharma before the buildings collapsed so dramatically, and now?” He shrugged. “They will only give us this last chance if you are involved.”
“Look, I appreciate you coming to see me, General. It must be something important. But I’m just not interested in serving my country again.”
“You don’t get it, Major,” General Branca said, his voice growing louder. “You don’t understand what’s going on here. You see, you never made it out of that building alive.”
“Branca,” Alvarez said in warning.
“What’s he talking about?” Onca asked him.
General Branca’s face shone with triumph. “It’s true. Tell him, General. You never made it out. You died, Onca. You were dragged out of the rubble, dead as a dry fish. You are legally dead. Do you understand? You were given a burial just as your men were. We brought you back for this.”
“Brought me back? Are you joking? I’m alive. Clearly, I was never dead. Perhaps I will sue the military for this deceit—” Onca broke off. His mind was working so slowly. “You are threatening to kill me if I do not comply, is that it?”
“No,” Alvarez said. “But your wounds were more severe than any but the most expensive surgical and medical techniques could deal with. Even you, a national hero, would not have received such treatment had it not been for our intervention.”
“I didn’t ask for special treatment. I don’t intend to be held to something I never agreed to. Are you suggesting that I now owe the military my life?”
“You owe it to your country,” General Branca said. “As a Brazilian.”
Is that what I am?
Onca stared at the Military Intelligence General at the foot of his bed. “I owe it, really?” Onca said. “I haven’t given enough already, is that what you’re saying?”
“You’re damned right I am,” Branca said. “If you don’t do this then you are betraying your country. Betraying your people. This is your chance for undoing some of this horrific failure you have committed. You’ve fucked up so badly that Abora Biopharma has threatened to relocate to Mexico. Billions, probably trillions of dollars might be lost. If you don’t do this then Brazil will not have any place at the table, we’ll be relegated to—”
“Branca!” General Alvarez barked the name, stood and stalked to the end of the bed. He paused and lowered his voice, speaking with extreme control. “Why don’t you wait outside?”
General Branca stood up straight, puffed his narrow chest out. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, General Alvarez. I am a General, too, and it is my responsibility to see that no disclosure is made to the—”
“You are a General by courtesy only,” Alvarez said, still speaking softly but with enough menace to cut the other man off. “And I said get out of here before I roll you into a ball and kick you through the window.”
Branca’s mouth twisted to one side and his face twitched as if he was thinking through his chances of resisting the will of the Special Forces legend that was General Alvarez.
The junior General stomped away, throwing open and shutting the door behind him so hard that the window glass rattled.
Alvarez turned, apologetically, back to Onca and returned to his side.
Onca watched him, trying to work out if the whole scene had been planned and acted out on his behalf.
“Military Intelligence,” Alvarez said, shaking his head as if he was disappointed they existed. “Listen, I’m going to tell you the truth, alright, son?”
That would be a first.
“Alright, sir.”
“This project might have the title of a UN mission but it is so much more than that. It began as civilian-led, and to be honest, it still is but the world’s military services have been much more involved in the past few years. It is not possible to overstate the importance of this mission, of this project. You want to be part of this, Onca. I swear to you that you will not regret it. We will make you better than you ever have been. Imagine that. And then you will get the chance to test yourself against the best in the world. And that’s before the mission even begins. You were made for this.”
“And if I don’t sign up?”
Alvarez looked to the heavens. “If General Branca were in here, he would continue to threaten you. He would say that you owe your life to the Army. I know, I know. They already threw you out. Nevertheless, it is true. They brought you back to life here. Now, personally, I would like nothing more than to shake you by the hand, thank you for your service and send you on your way. But these Orb Project people? The normal rules do not apply to them. These people, they would likely leave you in the state that they found you in. Legally speaking? It would not be murder. As far as the world knows, you are already dead. I can imagine how easily the devious, evil little sons of bitches would do it, too. Can’t you? You might imagine one of the military hospital APs here being sent an authorized treatment plan and it includes an injection with an inhuman volume of morphine or something else deadly. And the AP nurses here, you’ve seen them, all they can do is follow orders, blindly doing their duty without a thought in their idiot heads. They’d stroll in here, shoot it up into your drip here and that would be it. No more Major Onca. A real death, this time. A permanent death. And no one even has to feel like a murderer. You have to give it to these people, my friend, they are truly devious. Devious, indeed. As for me, of course, I would hate for anything like that to happen to you but who am I compared to our government? I cannot fight them. And neither can you. Here, my dear friend, do your duty. Help Brazil, one last time.”
Do your duty or we will kill you. Same old army.
Onca sighed, drugged, exhausted but conscious enough to know when he was in a corner. He pressed his thumb to the screen and it beeped, glowed green.
Alvarez beamed. “You are a true hero, son.”
Go fuck yourself, you slimy piece of shit.
“Alright, General. You got your way. You and your lapdog out there. Now, tell me about my mission.”
“I’m afraid I still can’t tell you what the mission is until you are selected. And this is something that you must achieve. You must.”
Onca snorted. “What do you mean, I must be selected? Another threat?”
Alvarez stood, shedding the last of his false joviality. “Plenty of time for us to get into that. Let’s just say for now that it would be in your best interest to be selected. And in the best interests of your loved ones.”
Onca stiffened. My loved ones? He had no loved ones. There was only one person that Alvarez might be referring to but no one knew about Lena. Or his brief relationship with her mother. Or did they?
Forcing himself to remain calm, Onca nodded, as if making a commitment to the General. “Can’t tell me anything at all? Not even where this operation is going to be?”
“I can tell you that you that it is somewhere very far away. And somewhere very dangerous.”
“Europe?”
General Alvarez had a strange, distant look in his heavily lined eyes.
“It’s space, Major. When you are selected for the final mission, you will be sent into deep space. Long distance. Long duration. And you might never make it back to Earth.”
PART 2 – ONCA’S RISE
The military base was out in the desert in the southwestern part of the United States of America, hundreds of miles from the nearest town. They flew him in on a cargo flight along with a bunch of support personnel and massive crates of equipment and supplies. He had changed planes twice already before boarding the massive cargo plane and along the way he had been shunted from place to place as if he were no more important than any other piece of cargo. There was no escort and no conversation possible in the hold where he lay on a taut cargo net, supported by a web of bungee cord, and got as much sleep as he could. The noise was so all-encompassing that it enveloped you in a cloud of vibration and became almost pleasant, if you allowed it to be.
He felt like a young recruit again, heading into the unknown. Heading from being a medium sized killer-fish in the little pond of the short-lived slums outside Sao Paulo into the huge world of the Brazilian Army. Again, and again joining the Air Mobile, the Special Forces Brigade. But by that point, he was already making a name for himself.
Already, even before he landed at the base in the desert, he was getting the distinct impression that he would not be much of anything in the United States. The American crew and personnel ignored him.
When the rear ramp lowered, he was hit with a blast of air so hot and dry it was like opening the door to an oven, his eyes overwhelmed by the sudden flood of white phosphorus-bright sunlight.
Onca grabbed his gear and followed the American down into the tarmac and took a look around, blinking away the glare.
The airstrip was wide and bustling with cargo planes, transport helicopters, air defense drones and the crew servicing them. Dominating everything was the sky. So vast and blue and bright that it hurt to look at it and the sun seared his skin. He tasted dust and hot oil. The men unloading the cargo shouted friendly abuse at each other as they worked, seemingly something common to the profession the world over.
One of the cars weaving about through the streams of personnel pulled to a stop in front of him, cutting him off.
“You Rafael Onca Santos?” the driver called out, grinning. He was a sergeant but young, his dark face shining in the dusty heat. “Major Santos? I’m Samuels, jump in, sir.”
They raced off toward the base, motor whirring as Sergeant Samuels put his foot down and careened between people and vehicles with the suicidal abandon of every young soldier in control of a jeep.
“So, you’re the new Brazilian, sir?” Samuels shouted.
“I guess I am.”
“Hey, don’t take this the wrong way, sir. It’s just no other country’s been able to send replacements out here. How come Brazil is so special anyway? Sir.”
Onca chose to ignore the question. He didn’t know the answer anyway.
“Where we going, Sergeant?”
“Uh, taking you to the General, sir. She probably wants to give you the tour herself.”
“The General is a woman?” Onca asked. Typical UN, Onca thought.
“Sure as shit she is,” Samuels s
aid. “Uh, sir. She’s General Richter.”
“Okay, got it.”
“You don’t know her, sir?” Samuels asked, glancing at Onca. “It’s just you don’t seem impressed.”
“Never heard of her,” Onca said. “But I have served under and alongside female officers. It’s fine, Samuels. I know they can make effective administrators.
The sergeant laughed, shaking his head. “I’d like to see you say that to her face, sir.”
“What’s the setup here? Where do I bunk, where’s the mess? Actually…” Onca looked around. “Where even am I?”
“Huh? This is Patton. The George S. Patton Training Center, so it says on the signs and the maps. But don’t be fooled. Training center, it ain’t. That’s just to make it sound uninteresting and stop anyone taking too close a look. What we really have here, sir, is a military base bigger than beta-class cities, hosting an infantry battalion and an aviation wing with that gigantic airfield. There’s also a logistics group and an engineering support battalion and plenty of other units spread out all over. And all of it just to hide the fact that UNOP is here in force, with the selection program.” Samuels laughed and shook his head.
“You do not mean they established a base here just to camouflage the UNOP program?” Onca said.
“I know, crazy, right? Especially as this is western Nevada. I mean it’s pretty much Army, Navy or Air Force from state border to state border anyway, so who would notice another bunch of lunatics playing in the sand?”
Onca took in the lines of fences and patrol towers in the distance, in all directions. “These regular forces are not just providing intelligence cover. They are defending the perimeter.”
“Sure, that too, I guess. We have to be ready to repel any attack. Lot of crazy terrorists out there, sir.”
“What do you know about the UNOP program? This selection process. Who are the others who came before me, what are they doing?”
The man shuffled in his seat. “Not sure if I’m supposed to really talk about that, sir.”
“Did anyone order you not to talk to me?” Onca glared at the young Sergeant, who glanced over and grinned.
